


Dedicate Your Last Breath to Me

by orphan_account



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Yule Shoot Your Eye Out is just the christmassyest song i know, also Christmas, and fluff, frank and gerard are nervous awkward dorks, if youre not into mentions of blood/ectoplasm/livers/etc then maybe this is not the fic for you, mysterious forces and other cool creepy things, one mention of Doctor Who, the title is angsty but the fic is not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a new voice on the radio.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dedicate Your Last Breath to Me

_You are made of stardust, you boast, caught in passing from imploding systems. When you crumble, there will be stars who boast that they are made of you._  
  
 _Welcome to Night Vale._  
  
It is snowing, even in the heat of the day, a Christmas tree has appeared in Frank’s house without his knowledge, and there is a new voice on the radio. Only the last one is truly surprising.  
  
 _Listeners, I, um, my name is Gerard and I’m just an intern here but I’ll be doing the show today. I hope you don’t mind. If you do mind, please whisper it to the rock in your backyard that was not there this morning, and throw it in the ocean that you did not believe existed except in half-remembered dreams. Cecil has called in today explaining that he is sick, though, to tell you the truth, I think he’s at home with Carlos, decorating for Christmas with the traditional sprigs of whispering wrought-iron and rat livers, because we all know Cecil has been exempted from illness this year because he won that eggplant growing contest at the county fair, remember? Our main story today regards the incident at last week’s town meeting that never happened. It never occurred and never will occur. If you have any questions, shout them desperately into the desert sky. No one will hear, not even the abyss of time. And now, to our weekly forecast._  
  
Frank sits at his scarred kitchen table and just listens, absently stroking his dog (who is really too large to be a real dog, but too small to be one of the more common forms of household demons). His body feels this boy’s voice like it is the hum of the impossible chord that drew him to Night Vale from Belleville. The scorpion on his neck flicks its tail and the fire on his chest blazes and the swallows over his hips flutter soft-sweetly before settling in to coo and listen.  
  
 _This week’s flavors are as follows:_  
  
 _Monday: Antiseptic mouthwash applied to cover the taste of the inevitability of aging and death and prunes._  
  
Frank wrinkles his nose. He hates prunes.  
  
 _Tuesday: Something so sweet and indescribable that you spend your entire life in pursuit of another taste, until your body grows ragged-thin with addiction and denial._  
  
Frank decides to apply to the Unknown Force That Causes Time Rifts to skip Tuesday this week.  
  
 _Wednesday: Poisoned blood._  
  
That’s not so bad.  
  
 _Thursday: The lips of someone you love as they tell you they are going to die. The bitter taste of sickness in their mouth that you can’t believe you never noticed before. Salt and rainwater. Hopelessness._  
  
That’s pretty bad. Frank decides to apply to skip the whole week.  
  
 _Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will all be tasteless and numb, with subtle undertones of artificial watermelon and disappointment._  
  
Frank leans back in his chair as he listens to Gerard list off typical events of the town: the middle school’s annual performance of The Nutcracker, the Mayor’s tree-lighting ceremony, the strange glowing lights, wailing, and explosions in the dog park. Nothing extraordinary. But this boy’s voice is. He wonders what his name would sound like in that voice, how _please_ and _more_ and _harder_ and _is that a giant levitating ball of ectoplasm behind you?_ would sound from Gerard’s lips.  
  
 _Stay tuned for Christmas carols sung by people who have forgotten you, or who never knew you at all, overlaid with unsurprisingly simple instructions on how to be invisible._  
  
 _Goodnight, Night Vale._  
  
 _Goodnight._  
  
\---  
  
It’s not until Christmas day that Frank hears Gerard’s voice again.  
  
He’s singing. Not wailing, screaming, moaning in pain, or hissing, but _singing_.  
  
Frank’s heart tells him to go up to Gerard and introduce himself. Frank tells his heart to stop backseat driving his life and that if it keeps talking out loud StrexCorp will hear. His heart shuts up. Frank goes up to Gerard and introduces himself, ignoring his heart’s smug smile.  
  
“Hi,” Gerard’s smile is crooked and perfect. “I’m Gerard.”  
  
“I know,” Frank’s smile is not crooked but, in Gerard’s opinion, also perfect. “I heard you. On the radio, that is. And just now. Singing. You should do the show more often. And dude, with your singing voice, you’d be great at presenting the weather.”  
  
Gerard’s smile becomes bigger and more crooked and, impossibly, more perfect as he blushes. “Doyoumaybewannagetsomehotchocolate?” He stutters out in a rush.  
  
“Yeah,” Frank’s as breathless as that one time a noxious cloud of gas descended on the town and didn’t leave for a week, before the Glow Cloud fought it off its turf. “Yeah, um, that would be awesome, want to come back to mine? I have synthetic human blood to make it out of, ‘cause I’m a vegetarian.”  
  
“Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s cool, that’s great.” Frank stops Gerard’s stuttering by going up on tiptoe and kissing him, once, softly. He pulls back to see Gerard staring at him with long eyelashes gathering snow and a smile like the desert sun in the middle of summer.  
  
\---  
  
When Gerard leaves Frank’s apartment late that night with bitten lips and mussed hair, Frank leans out his doorway and says, “Merry Christmas, Gerard. I’ll see you again soon?”  
  
“Yeah, you will! We haven’t gone through the changing roles of the Doctor’s companions as signifiers of the ideals of the modern age, yet, you think I’d let you off the hook that easy?” Gerard quirks a grin. “Merry Christmas to you, too. Goodnight, Frank. Goodnight.”  
  
\---  
  
Frank does, indeed, see Gerard again soon, when a Mysterious Force teleports him, completely naked but thankfully in possession of all his limbs, into Frank’s shower.  
  
Frank sends an Edible Arrangement to the Mysterious Force in thanks.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Welcome to Night Vale or Frank Iero or Gerard Way or anything like that so pls do not sue me because I am not rich enough to afford any sort of lawyer. The title is from "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out" by Fall Out Boy and I do not own that song or band, either.


End file.
